Du Plessis landed another double on a saturated Sha Tin course yesterday, including the day's feature race on The Goodies for Caspar Fownes, and got a bonus buzz by landing the Jockey Challenge as well, much to the delight of punters who backed him from HK$11 into HK$8.

Du Plessis is a rare commodity in the racing world - someone with abundant international experience who has ridden plenty of Group One winners yet can ride at the limit weight of 113 pounds.

And the owners and trainers have embraced him with unusual fondness, even though he was handed the "graveyard shift" - a late March start - which has over the years claimed bigger and higher-profile victims than Du Plessis.

"It's all worked out very well and I couldn't be happier with the way everything's fitted into place," said Du Plessis after being congratulated on his big day by Jockey Club executive director of racing Bill Nader.

Du Plessis rode as much on instinct as anything else in the La Salle Diamond Jubilee Cup, coming from last to first on The Goodies through driving rain and near zero visibility.

"That big storm that hit the course when we were going out onto the track left a lot of surface water and when we got to the half mile [800m], I couldn't see where I was going," Du Plessis said.

"I pulled my visor down to see if I could make out where the leaders were and said to myself `right, we'd better get going' and just hooked him to the very outside."

The Goodies has a habit of missing the start and while Du Plessis hasn't exactly cured him of it, he has learned how to let the chestnut "do his thing" and not get resentful.

"I've never ridden a horse like him," the jockey said. "I've learned you can't do a thing on him ... you just have to sit there and let him begin when he wants to.

"If you try to bustle him and get him ready, he just gets upset and won't go at all.

"He wants to watch them all jump, then he begins on his own terms and relaxes at the back of the field. Then he gets into his rhythm and if everything goes right, he really does have a big finish as he showed today," he added.

Du Plessis also has the unique distinction of being the only jockey to have won on Challenger, whose owner Christabel Lee Shang-yuee had endured 43 winless days before yesterday's breakthrough in the Class Five Wong Chuk Wan Handicap (2,000m).

"He's a funny old horse because last start, when he was wide without cover, he just gave up," said trainer Almond Lee Yee-tat after the grey held off the late closing Chinsola, ridden by Douglas Whyte, by a short head.

"I don't do much with him between races, just a couple of laps of trotting on the bridle path in Penfold Park most of the time. It's just a matter of keeping him as sound and as happy as possible.

"I'm just glad to have won one with him for Christabel - she and her parents have been very patient," he added.

Du Plessis has now won eight races in his three-month tour of duty - as well as 18 seconds and that ninth win on Triumph at Happy Valley that was lost on the stewards' room.

Now a New Zealand permanent resident, Du Plessis was Singapore's champion jockey in 2006, and has been rewarded with a full-season Hong Kong licence for next season, beginning on September 15.